Largest naked cruise in history set to sail

By Alan Parker - Saturday, February 9, 2013 at 6:08 AM - 0 Comments

Sometime in the late afternoon on Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013 — an hour or so after the cruise ship Carnival Freedom leaves its home port of Fort Lauderdale, Florida — the ship’s captain will make an announcement on the ship’s public address system.

The captain’s message will go something like this:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now in international waters. Please feel free to disrobe.”

And with that, approximately 3,000 passengers aboard the Carnival Freedom will doff duds and begin eight days of the largest naked cruise vacation in the history of the world.

Not that nude cruising is something new. It’s been going on — with increasing success — for more than two decades. Like every other niche in the increasingly diverse cruise market — from cinephiles to wine connoisseurs to cougar dating to heavy metal fans — nude cruising gives a particular community the opportunity to mingle with like-minded individuals while enjoying a vacation at sea.

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Hotel for pets, and people too

By Julia McKinnell - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments

Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

Finding a pet-friendly hotel isn’t the hassle it once was. A lot of hotels do accept pets. The gamble is, what will the room be like? Sometimes, it feels like pet owners are the new smokers. You can check in, but you’ll be sleeping in the smelly room across from the ice machine on the ground floor. In Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., for instance, our pet-friendly hotel room had tufts of fur on the pillowcase when I turned down the bedspread. I called the front desk to complain, and we got moved to a new room where our cat disappeared into a hole in the drywall behind the toilet.

So it was nice last week to check into a dog-friendly hotel that had none of these problems. Retired veterinarian Dr. Paula Terifaj owns and operates the DogSpa Resort and Wellness Center in Desert Hot Springs, Calif. The DogSpa isn’t a spa for dogs, as the name suggests, but rather a hotel where dogs of all sizes and breeds may stay unattended in the room, run in the private off-leash dog park or roam the main lounge while their humans eat breakfast. But what had enticed me there were the website photos. In one shot, a cute dog is paddling in the hotel pool. In another, a woman luxuriates with a glass of wine while a large hunting dog nuzzles her in the hot tub. Continue…

A Cold War story told through 70,000 artifacts

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

Coleman-Rayner/The Wende Museum

Justinian Jampol created a museum because he had a storage problem.

A decade ago, the young Californian was a graduate student at the University of Oxford, researching visual culture from the Cold War Communist bloc. He worked his way through archives in Berlin and Moscow, but found that the material in them was limited.

“You realize two things,” says Jampol, speaking of the archival material. “They’re the voice of authority, and they’re paper.”

Museums had other flaws. “They’re there to tell you a particular story. There’s a beginning, a middle, an end, and a gift shop. You can’t really engage with it.” Continue…

Poorism, the new tourism

By Ashifa Kassam - Monday, January 7, 2013 at 9:50 AM - 0 Comments

Petr Josek Snr/Reuters

His thick black eyeliner smudged and long dirty-blond hair in a ponytail, Karim holds a yellow umbrella high in the air as he walks through an unlit park in downtown Prague. He points to a group of men, barely visible in the dark. Heroin addicts about to shoot up, he explains to the group of tourists following him. After turning their attention to a few prostitutes on a corner, Karim opens up about his experience of living on and off the streets for more than 20 years.

Since August, the homeless transsexual and former prostitute has been leading one of the hottest tours of Prague. Similar tours, led by homeless or once-homeless guides, have popped up in London, Amsterdam and San Francisco. Billed as alternative views of the cities, they have been praised for converting tourist dollars into employment for homeless people and criticized for turning homelessness into a tourist attraction.

The past decade saw an explosion of poverty tourism in developing nations, with visitors traipsing through the slums of Mumbai or the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Now it seems that poorism, as critics call it, has found a market in industrialized nations. Continue…

An alternative sightseeing guide to London

By Julia De Laurentiis Johnson - Friday, July 20, 2012 at 11:38 AM - 0 Comments

London is a city so crammed that walking down the street on any given day is like a game of human pin-ball. Olympic London will be worse: as in, waiting-in-line-all-day-to-get-into-the-Tate Modern worse. Wouldn’t you rather avoid the masses and see the city like a stay-cating Londoner? Sure you would. Here’s an unconventional guide to sightseeing in London:

Michael Dales/Flickr

COFFEE
Wake up and what’s on your mind? Coffee, of course. There’re lots of great coffee shops in London but only one where you can learn latte art from a World Barista champion between your sips of flat white. A few years ago, Gwilym Davies was running his coffee cart in East London when his friends entered him in the World Barista Championship competition on a whim. When the flat cap-wearing Yorkshireman won the title in 2009, the charming cart was soon overrun and Davies opened Prufrock’s, a laid-back café and learning space. You can just sit and sip in the café or, as the café’s namesake poem suggests, dive in and measure out your Saturday with coffee spoons: Prufrock’s offers three-hour classes in Brew Methods, Coffee Tastings and Latte Art, among others.

Don’t want to work so hard for your cup? Full Stop Café is great to watch weekenders browse Brick Lane market. Bonus: it also serves handcrafted ales from Redchurch Brewery, made just up the road.

Jay Bergesen/Flickr

WALK
Coffee buzz kicking in, you’d probably like to do some shopping. You don’t need a red toy phone booth and under no circumstances should you buy a reusable Harrods bag. The Columbia Road Flower Market is capable of giving you that souvenir experience we all hope to find when we travel and it will put your senses to work. There’s that rainbow of blossoms lining the street, the strong sniff of hollyhocks from the stall next door, and then there’s all that yelling. Men with gold chains and cockney accents holler things like ‘Lilies fer a fiver! Buy ‘em for your wife, buy ‘em fer someone else’s wife!’ You’ll feel like an extra in Guy Ritchie Presents London! with blooms instead of bullets. Don’t forget your camera – this place is rich in photo-op gold. On your way out, pick up some irises to brighten up your hotel room. Go around closing time to get the best deals. Sunday 8 am – 2 pm.

Left: MadHatterr/Flickr Right: Cannonsnapper/Flickr

ART GALLERY
Most art galleries in London are free and the streets, spilling over with graffiti, are no different. London is known for its incendiary street art—this is, after all, the land of Banksy. And there are many pockets across town where you can witness a slice of the London art scene as it happens – amazing artists paint the walls in the sunken ball courts at Stockwell Park Estate almost weekly in the summer. The Leake Street tunnel by Waterloo station is easily accessible and was the site of Banksy’s 2008 Cans Festival, an urban street art party where artists from around the world came to beautify the tunnel. Brick Lane and Old Street is street art central in London. Curtain Rd, Holywell Lane and Rivington St. are packed with so many stencils, posters and coats of spray paint, you’ll feel like Alice in graffiti wonderland.

pietroizzo/Flickr

MUSEUM
London is an old city. And sure, sometimes those ancient buildings can make you feel like you’re in an open-air museum. But most main streets have some combination of 30 chain stores, like Carphone Warehouse,Tesco and Willam Hill betting shops, giving them a terrible cookie-cutter effect. You’ll need a pretty good imagination to feel the spirit of Swinging London in Soho or the refinement of the Edwardian gentry in Kensington. But Highgate Cemetery on the north end of town looks utterly frozen in time. The sprawling cemetery, packed with crooked headstones and weeping stone angels wrapped in dense ivy, is a morbid and beautiful monument to the Victorian obsession with death. It’s the resting place of Karl Marx, poet Christina Rossetti and writer George Elliot, among others. Go on a misty day for full effect. The West Cemetery can be viewed only by tour and it’s worth it – you’ll feel like you’ve time travelled.

Kake Pugh/Flickr

DINNER
Instead of Googling a restaurant online (and scrutinizing the menu beforehand so you know exactly what you’ll be ordering), The School of Life  has a more innovative idea on how to dine. The resource centre, originally set up as a school to get through the school of hard knocks, not only offers classes with philosophical titles like “How to be Creative” and “How Necessary is a Relationship,” but they also host intimate meals where diners are encouraged to weigh in with their own ideas and experiences. Think of it like a diner’s salon. Gone are the ‘what do you do for a living’ banalities and other cocktail-hour platitudes. At these dinners, you’re likely to intimately relate to how someone feels about the concept of guilty pleasure or how to best develop compassion before even knowing their name. Next month, they’re hosting a Picnic with Thoreau in a secluded London park. Sip Pimm’s and nibble potato salad while discussing self-discovery and purpose, with strangers!

If that’s too intimating, The Holly Bush in Hampstead is the most charming pub in London. You’ll get standard English fare like beef & ale pie with Eton mess for dessert. Walk the Hampstead streets and admire the chocolate box houses, as you digest.

Everest: ‘The open graveyard waiting above’

By Alan Parker - Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 3:16 PM - 0 Comments

Binod Joshi/AP Photo

Mount Everest is the world’s highest garbage dump—and graveyard.

It is littered with abandoned tents and tin cans discarded half a century ago and empty oxygen tanks and 150-200 dead bodies.

And every time a climber reaches the summit of Everest and descends to tell the tale, he or she has climbed past those abandoned tents and discarded tin cans and empty oxygen tanks and scores of dead bodies — twice. Once on the way up and once on the way down.

When Toronto climber Shriya Shah-Klorfine died of exhaustion and lack of oxygen last Saturday somewhere above 8,300 metres — in what they call “the death zone” — she was not unique among climbers who have succumbed on the mountain.

She was possibly Everest Death No. 231 or 232 or 233 or 234 or 235 or 236 — or maybe even 237 or 238 or 239 or 240. Nobody knows for sure. Two other climbers are known to have perished on Everest the day Shriya Shah-Klorfine died and three more the following day. More were helped to safety by Sherpa guides and other climbers or the death toll would have been even higher.

As a general rule of thumb, one climber dies on Everest for every 10 who reach the summit.

About 50 of those dead bodies have been recovered and brought down from the mountain — always at extreme cost, sometimes at the expense of others’ lives. The rest are still on the mountain. Some are lost forever in crevasses or blown over sheer drops into space, others are frozen in time, within sight of the desperate living climbers moving past them.

There is an area just below the summit known as Rainbow Valley — because of the number of corpses there still clad in their bright down climbing jackets.

Veteran summiteer David Brashears, who led the IMAX filming expedition to the top of Everest in 1996, has called it “the open graveyard waiting above.”

For all of the 1980s and most of the 1990s, the skeletal remains of climber Hannelore Schmatz sat within sight of any climber on the southern route, leaning against her backpack with her eyes wide open and hair blowing in the gale-force winds.

Nepalese police inspector Yogendra Bahadur Thapa and Sherpa guide Ang Dorje fell to their deaths in 1984 while trying to recover her body. Eventually, in the late 1990s, high winter winds finally blew her remains over the Kangshung Face.

Shriya Shah-Klorfine will almost certainly not be another Hannelore Schmatz. Reports from Everest say attempts are being made to recover her body from the death zone to be returned to her family in Canada.

Despite the deaths and the ghastly trail of unrecovered bodies, the number of people who want to climb Mount Everest  increases every year.

With a climbing season of about two months, the highest mountain in the world is just not high enough to accommodate everyone who wants to climb it — even at an estimated average cost of $75,000 per climber. Throw in a few weeks of bad weather — as happened this year in early May — and the dozens of expeditions waiting their turn become a traffic jam on the roof of the world.

If climbers are forced into a holding pattern too long anywhere in the death zone, oxygen supplies are soon exhausted and the choice becomes one of admitting defeat or facing a high possibility of death.

Few climbers in pursuit of their ultimate goal believe they will be the ones to die on Everest until it is too late to save themselves. And so the death toll keeps rising.

Shriya Shah-Klorfine died in such a traffic jam. In part, because of the traffic jam. She was one of an estimated 200 climbers attempting to reach the roof of the world on that blustery, dangerous Saturday.

She made it to the top but did not have enough oxygen or strength to make it back down through the death zone.

Shriya Shah-Klorfine was a victim of her ambition to do something exceptional. No more or less than George Mallory or Andrew Irvine or any of the other 200-plus climbers who have died on Mount Everest and whose bodies are mostly still there as ghastly signposts to the highest point on earth.

The majority of those deaths have occurred on the southern, Nepalese side of the mountain because the Chinese government is far more restrictive about allowing climbers to attempt the summit from the northern, Tibetan side of Everest.

In 2011, the government of Nepal issued 23 permits for foreign teams to climb Mount Everest. Those 23 teams were composed of 234 foreign climbers and 259 high-altitude Sherpa guides. Making the summit were 219 Sherpas and 156 foreign climbers.

In addition, three Nepalese expeditions — which do not require the same permits foreign teams do — made up of 17 climbers and 21 Sherpa guides made the ascent.

Three foreign climbers and one Sherpa guide were known to have died during that 2011 Everest climbing season, a remarkably low death toll. This year seven foreign climbers and three Sherpas have died already — more than double the 2011 toll with more deaths likely still to come.

Sir Edmund Hillary, who conquered Everest with Tenzing Norgay in 1953, called for restrictions on the number of Everest expeditions before his death in 2008.

“I think the whole attitude towards climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying,” Hillary said. “The people just want to get to the top. They don’t give a damn for anybody else who may be in distress.”

But any severe restrictions are highly unlikely.

Everest expeditions have become far too important to Nepal’s economy and adventurers from around the world are adamant that they be allowed the same opportunity as Hillary to reach the world’s highest peak — even if it means their deaths or the deaths of others.

Virgin Atlantic to allow passengers to use cell phones in flight

By Alan Parker - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 3:58 PM - 0 Comments

Wayan Vota/Flickr

Virgin Atlantic has announced it will soon allow passengers to make in-flight phone calls on their personal mobile devices. The service will initially be available only on Virgin Atlantic’s A330 service between London and New York, but will be offered on at least 10 of its routes by the end of 2012. Other airlines won’t be far behind.

And that will be the end of the last refuge on earth — or 30,000 feet above it — from the tentacled control of telephones over our lives.

It used to be — in the good old days — that even the most hardened business traveller and tech junkie was forced to switch off his or her cell phone at the boarding gate and spend the next six or 10 or 16 hours cut off from that constantly pumping umbilical connection with the rest of the world.

Whether they would admit it or not, most of them found the enforced abstinence a blessed relief.

As for the rest of us without a telephone addiction, there has always been a special letting-go feeling of being cocooned  in that metal tube hurtling through time and space with only the most tenuous connection to the earthly  concerns of our daily lives.

Of course there were always the wailing babies and expansive seat mates, but that’s a different form of encroachment — almost a life-affirming intimacy — than the telephonic intrusiveness that now pervades coffee shops, elevators, restaurants and most public spaces, even theatre performances.

I do not want to be trapped on a seven-hour flight from Heathrow to Pearson with the person beside me droning endlessly into his cellphone about his chihuahua’s scabies and the person in front of me engaging in a loud, soul-destroying argument about technical specifications with a colleague on the other side of the world.

I want my seven-hour cocoon trajectory back. And that’s just for an Atlantic crossing. I simply can’t image how noisesomely awful a flight across the Pacific will be a year or two from now when everyone is allowed to chatter incessantly on their iPhones and BlackBerries all the way from Vancouver to Hong Kong.

If long-distance airline flights are now a form of moving purgatory, the addition of cell phone cacophony will make them a living hell.

A real-life Captain Bligh

By Ken MacQueen - Friday, July 23, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Sometimes, when you want something badly enough, you suspend disbelief, hearing only what you wish to hear. Boguslaw “Rob” Norwind knew this instinctively, as misanthropic as he was by all accounts. And so the shadowy owner and skipper of the Discovery Sailing Academy, who also uses the surnames Norwid and Norwid-Niepoko, painted beautiful word pictures in the brochures he distributed to South American hostels and in sales pitches emailed to would-be sailors.

For free spirits like Lisa Hanlon of Nelson B.C., and Josée “Jade” Chabot of Montreal, the lure was irresistible: a sailing adventure in the South Pacific. Norwind promised a ticket to freedom: the chance to earn a Yachtmaster Offshore certificate, qualifying them to skipper commercial, ocean-going yachts. “Our goals are to help you learn how to manage a ship, healthy living, respect for others and self-discipline on the high seas,” Norwind wrote in an email this January to Hanlon, already a seasoned traveller at 22. He promised “a relaxed atmosphere of watching and filming whales, dolphins, turtles and oceanic birds. Sundowners and music will soothe the soul and sore muscles at the end of each sailing day. The camaraderie of the sea!”

Continue…

Follow the Intrepid Explorer; One-Stop Arizona Shopping

By Takeoffeh.com - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:04 AM - 0 Comments

Celebrated Explorer to Lead Tours to the Far Corners of the Earth
Kensington Tours is a different kind of tour operator. It is the creation of explorer and Royal Geographic Society Fellow Jeff Willner, whose passion for travel was incubated during a youth spent in Africa. He’s now a veteran of expeditions to over 70 countries. During his years of travel, Willner realized the vast difference between a typical package tour and a journey of personal discovery — where the deep knowledge and personal attention of a local guide transforms a trip into an experience. While private-guided touring sounds like it would be prohibitively expensive to most, Kensington’s private tours with guide, vehicle and driver are on average 30% lower in cost than group tours offered by other quality travel companies.

Willner says he is now taking his vision to a new level with an Explorer-In-Residence program which will launch tourism to the Congo. The first member explorer is Mikael Strandberg, considered one of the 50 most important explorers on earth by the London-based Royal Geographical Society. Willner and Strandberg recently undertook a scouting mission to The Democratic Republic of Congo to assess its potential and readiness as a destination for intrepid travellers. Congo itineraries – featuring endangered Eastern Lowland Gorillas, Pygmy tribes and the Nyiragongo volcano – will be the first in the Expedition Series. Other trips under development include Antarctica with polar explorers, motorcycle safaris in Kenya, Tanzania and Russia, a deep dive submarine trip into the Cayman Trench and cultural discoveries in Yemen, Oman and North Korea. These itineraries will appeal to intrepid global explorers, but not all of Kensington’s offerings are so exotic or demanding – there’s everything from a four-day tour of Montreal and Quebec City to a seven-day Costa Rica discovery tour.

For Peat’s Sake: Porter Puts The Fun Back In Flying
Many Porter Airlines passengers have a nose for business. Now Porter is betting they have a nose for fine Scotch too. The airline has partnered with Glenfiddich, the world’s most awarded single malt, on a time-limited pre-flight experience for travellers departing from Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. Until July 23, Porter customers can participate in a guided tasting of the Glenfiddich 12 Year Old, 15 Year Old and 18 Year Old single malts. Experienced “Malt Specialists” will be on-hand to lead travellers through the nuances and subtleties of tasting and understanding the complex but rewarding world of single malts. “We place a great deal of emphasis on each detail making up the overall passenger experience,” says Porter CEO Robert Deluce, president and CEO of Porter Airlines. “Partnering with Glenfiddich is a new way we can make the journey for travellers as enjoyable as the destination itself.” Whisky nosings will be offered to Porter passengers between 4:00 and 8:00 PM on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays through July 23.

Website Features Arizona Summer Bargains
The Arizona Office of Tourism (AOT) has launched a website featuring packages created by the state’s many tourism providers. The website is aimed at state residents in a bid to boost tax revenues through domestic tourism, but it is open to Canadians as well, providing a one-stop shop of travel deals available around the state through the end of September. Tourism is big business in the Grand Canyon State – in 2008 visitors spent $18.5 billion in Arizona and the industry employs nearly 200,000 residents. The Travel Deals section of the website is packed with special offers on hotels and lodging, vacation packages, seasonal specials, outdoor adventures, golf and sport trips, dining and more. There are literally hundreds of offers featured on the site, including a one-night stay at the Days Inn Lake Havasu and a two-hour Jet Ski rental for just $100, or an overnight stay with unlimited golf and cart for just $45 per person per night at the Francisco Grande Hotel and Golf Resort.

Photo Credits: travel.nationalgeographic.com, arizonaguide.com, glenfiddich.com

Airline Alliances

By Takeoffeh.com - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 10:37 AM - 0 Comments

For frequent flyers, airline alliances are a way of life. Oneworld, Star Alliance, SkyTeam – they all claim to offer travellers the world on a silver wing. In looking into why the airlines formed these global agreements, it’s clear there are many advantages for them. But what about for you?

Alliances were created by airlines for airlines – they are businesses after all. The initial idea was to extend their networks through code-sharing agreements – in other words, while airline A may not fly directly to your destination, they can take you part of the way and hand you over to partner Airline B, who does. The appearance of a relatively seamless trip extends to selling the flights as being on one carrier – from the search results to ticketing.

Since governments are notoriously protective of their national airlines, they make the creation of global brands extremely difficult. Alliances have created a way to get around many of those obstacles.

Formed in 1997, Star Alliance was the first and remains the largest, with 28 members including Air Canada. More than 500 million passengers fly with Star Alliance members each year. Oneworld was next. Launched in 1999 it has just 11 members, but they include biggies like American Airlines, British Airways and Cathay Pacific. SkyTeam is the youngest of the group, formed in 2000 and featuring a dozen members. Together, the three alliances represent almost three-quarters of global air travel.

As alliances have grown in size and importance, they’ve also expanded in scope. Member airlines now share sales offices, maintenance, catering and IT facilities, operational staff and purchasing programs. These add up to cost savings that have become all but essential in a highly competitive marketplace.

So what’s in it for you? Frequently cited alliance benefits to travellers include lower fares due to lower operational costs, more departure times to choose from on a given route, easier access to more destinations, optimized connections, easier access to shared airport lounges and the ability to earn mileage rewards from multiple carriers for a single account.

Critics say alliances can have negative impacts on customers too, such as higher fares when competition on specific routes is reduced and less frequent flights on shared routes. And avid flyers and mileage collectors complain about variations in perks and policies between members of the same alliance. “There are still really deep pockets of incompatibility. It’s not always what it’s cracked up to be,” said Randy Petersen, founder of FlyerTalk.com, in a recent Wall Street Journal article.

Despite some complaints, for most frequent flyers the biggest attraction of alliances is earning miles and enjoying privileges like priority check-in, boarding and lounge access. Flying isn’t much fun these days and anything that eases the pain is welcome. In fact, alliances have now become so important for miles and perks that picking an alliance may be more important than picking an airline.

A recent Wall Street Journal article rated the three alliances on a variety of measures. For example, it suggested that using mileage points for a free ticket or to upgrade from economy to business class is generally easier if you’re a Star Alliance member. It found that airport lounge access is often better for frequent fliers at Oneworld. Overall, though, the Wall Street Journal gave decent marks to all three alliances, giving Star an A-, Oneworld a B and SkyTeam a B-.

Airline alliances have become a critical component of the industry and will remain so well into the future. “Alliances exist because airlines cannot offer comprehensive global coverage the way consumer brands like Nescafé or Coca-Cola do,” aviation consultant Olivier Fainsilber recently told Agence France Presse. “Everyone wins with alliances, which is why airlines and travellers like them and competition authorities accept them.”

Image Credits: DSGpro, staralliance.com, oneworld.com

This week's travel news

By Bruce Parkinson, Takeoffeh.com - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 9:57 AM - 0 Comments

There’s Gold In Them Islands: Caribbean Tourism Worth $12 Billion
There are few places that equal the Caribbean when it comes to sun, sand and sea pleasures. There’s no place that equals the region for dependence on tourism. A recent impact study found that the Caribbean travel and tourism industry will earn $12 billion this year and account for 1.9 million direct and indirect jobs – or one in every nine jobs in the region. Tourism’s contribution to regional GDP is over 4% directly, but tops 12% on a broader impact measure. For some destinations, the impact is even more profound: tourism is responsible for one in four jobs on the island of Jamaica and 27.7% of the island’s GDP. In a statement delivering the study results, UK-based Oxford Economics said “Our research indicates that travel and tourism play a proportionately stronger role in both GDP and employment creation [in the Caribbean] than in any other comparable region,” As history has shown, such a disproportionately high dependence on tourism can be as precarious as it is profitable, as natural disasters and civil unrest can quickly slow the flow of visitors.

Hotel Industry Recovery: As Rooms Fill, Rates Will Rise
Industry analysts and hoteliers agree that 2009 was the worst year in the history of the hotel business. Not surprisingly, they’re only admitting that now as fortunes appear to be on the rise again — it doesn’t do to preach doom when you’re still trying to sell franchises or attract investors. What that means for travellers is that rate increases are just around the corner. As Business Travel News reported this week, a recent investment conference in New York gave lodging leaders a forum to express their recession experiences. “What happened last year was really the perfect storm,” said Best Western CEO David Kong. “Demand went down substantially, almost 6 percent, and at the same time supply grew by 3.2 percent.” “Corporate business just fell off a cliff,” said Monty Bennett, CEO of upscale hotel owner Ashford Hospitality. “When all these companies cut back all corporate travel, they made their profits by cutting expenses. Now that they’re looking to grow profits, they can’t cut expenses anymore.” The turnaround is underway, with hotels reporting higher occupancy through the first few months of 2010. Rates, which plummeted to very consumer-friendly levels during the recession, have yet to bounce back, but hoteliers believe that’s just a matter of time.

Cruising Canucks: Sea-Based Vacations Are Fastest-Growing Segment
More Canadians are walking the gangplank – and paying for the privilege. A new study reveals that cruises make up the fastest growing segment of Canada’s travel market. Industry researcher PhoCusWright Inc. says cruises fit well with the Canadian appetite for all-inclusive package vacations – even though most cruises don’t include things like alcohol in the price. Over the past couple of years cruises have certainly appealed to Canadians’ appetite for bargains. When many Americans stayed home during the worst of the recession, prices plummeted and less-impacted Canadians happily took their place – Canadian cruisers grew by 5% in 2008 and “a stunning 9% in 2009″ during the recession. Another interesting result from the study: 27% of Canadian travellers surveyed said they usually book through traditional travel agencies, compared to just 13%of American travellers. Meanwhile, the cruise industry continues to generate reams of press with product enhancements. Norwegian Cruise Line, which has struggled in recent years, is back in the spotlight with the launch of its largest ship ever, the 4,000-passenger Norwegian Epic. Taking the ‘floating resort’ concept to new levels, the ship puts the focus on onboard activities rather than port calls, with a dazzling entertainment line-up and an array of dining opportunities. With behemoths like Epic and Royal Caribbean’s 5,600-passenger Oasis of the Seas, it’s easy to forget you’re on a ship. But that seems to be what a sizable segment of cruisers want. Rather than an opportunity to explore new destinations, many cruisers appear more interested in eating, drinking, tanning by the pool and checking out high-profile entertainment at night. And when it comes to port calls, some of the most popular are the private islands owned by Royal Caribbean, Disney Cruise Lines, Holland America and NCL. These small Caribbean islands are uninhabited until a few thousands cruisers arrive, unmolested by the hawkers and vendors typical of cruise ports. The cruise lines continue to add private island amenities, from private cabanas to water play areas, exhilarating rides to expanded beaches.

Up In The Air: Flying Is Back
After years of almost nothing but bad news coming from the international aviation industry, there’s finally something upbeat to report. In the month of May, both international passenger and freight traffic moved ahead of pre-recession levels. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported an 11.7% increase in passenger traffic and a 34.3% jump in freight demand compared to May 2009.

With airlines closely watching capacity growth, they are filling close to 80% of available seats, a near record level. Now if they could only get corporations to once again start paying 10 times the price of an economy seat for the big seats up front, everything would

By: Bruce Parkinson
Bruce Parkinson is a travel industry journalist and regular contributor to Takeoffeh.com as well as sister company, OpenJaw.com

Photo Credits: bestwestern.com, visitjamaica.com, disneycruise.com, Sieto

The World's Most Incredible Hotel Pool

By Takeoffeh.com - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 9:49 AM - 9 Comments

There’s no doubt there are rooms with pretty spectacular views at the brand-new Marina Bay Sands hotel, but it’s hard to imagine topping the vista from the rooftop infinity pool, 55 storeys above Singapore.

As the UK’s Daily Mail reports, swimming to the edge isn’t quite as dangerous as it looks. While the water in the infinity pool appears to end in a sheer drop, it actually spills into a catchment area where it is pumped back into the main pool. At three times the length of an Olympic-sized pool and 650 feet above street level, it is the largest outdoor pool in the world at that height.

The incredible pool is a highlight of the boat-shaped ’SkyPark’ perched atop the three towers that make up the world’s most expensive hotel, the $6.4-billion Marina Bay Sands development designed by Canadian architect Moshe Safdie.  The hotel, which features 2,560 rooms starting at over $500 a night, was officially opened recently with a concert by Diana Ross.

The title of world’s most expensive hotel was previously held by the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi, estimated to have cost $3.2-billion when it opened in 2004. But with its indoor canal, opulent art, casino, outdoor plaza, convention centre, theatre, crystal pavilion and museum shaped like a lotus flower, the Marina Bay Sands has taken its crown.

Inside the resort, shoppers can ride along an indoor canal in Sampan boats styled on traditional Chinese vessels from the 17th century. The owners commissioned five well-known artists to create works of art designed to ’integrate’ with the buildings. Among these is a 40-metre-long sculpture made from 16,100 steel rods. The whole thing weighs 14.8 tons and it took 60 people to assemble it in the hotel. Another dramatic artwork is titled Rising Forest and consists of 83 three-metre-high pots with trees in them. The pots were so big the artist had to build a customised kiln the size of a small building to make them in.

Marina Bay Sands is another indication of economic recovery. It was due to open in 2009, but was delayed by funding problems due to the global financial crisis.

By: Bruce Parkinson
Bruce Parkinson is a travel industry journalist and regular contributor to Takeoffeh.com as well as sister company, OpenJaw.com

Photo Credits: Reuters, EPA

All The Things We Leave Behind – In Hotel Rooms

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 at 11:14 AM - 0 Comments

A recent story about a hotel housekeeper in Miami who found $6,000 in cash left behind in a guestroom got a former hotel manager thinking about items guests are likely to forget and leave behind.

Daniel Edward Craig decided to pay a visit to a hotel’s housekeeping department to see what was kicking around in the Lost and Found. He found boxes and boxes of guest belongings, most of which looked like junk left behind on purpose, but he knew from experience that hotel staff do a lot of dumpster diving looking for things guests have left,  so hotels are careful about  what  may suddenly be missed and deemed as valuable.

While perusing the collection, a staff member added a very large bra to the mix, saying that happens all the time. Asked what other things guests leave behind, staff listed off everything from the trivial – toiletries, toothbrushes, CDs, adapters – to the treasured – jewellery, laptops, iPods, passports, USB sticks, clothing and prescriptions. One guest left behind an $800 bottle of Crystal champagne. It might have made for a fun staff party had he not picked it up – two years later.

Sex toys are another popular leave-behind, probably because they’re usually hidden out of sight, in a drawer or under the bed. Apparently guests never call back looking for those.

If items left behind in hotel rooms are an indication of what travellers are up to on the road, Craig says partners and spouses have good reason to be nervous. In the Lost and Found log book he found records of a whip, pornographic materials, a nurse’s uniform, a wig, a stethoscope and narcotics. Then again, he also found business books, language tapes and a Bible.

What should you do if you leave something behind in a hotel? Call the hotel immediately and ask about it. If they can’t find it, be patient and persistent; sometimes items are temporarily misplaced, but eventually they should show up. The hotel will arrange to mail it back to you.

Since most of us are inclined to leave something behind that we’d appreciate having returned, the nice thing to do is always leave a tip for the housekeeper. By the way: Craig reports that people were so moved by the honesty and difficult personal circumstances of the Miami housekeeper who found the $6,000 and turned it in, that she later received donations exceeding the amount she found.

Why It's Great To Be A Canadian Traveller

By Takeoffeh.com - Monday, July 5, 2010 at 3:02 PM - 0 Comments

Yes, Canadians are known as polite travellers, and that’s no bad thing, making us welcome in many places around the world. But a warm welcome isn’t the only perk of being a Canadian traveller, according to online travel seller Cheapflights.ca. Here are some more reasons why it’s great to be a Canadian on the go, on Canada Day or any other day:

That Politeness Thing: Polite may not be exciting, but generations of well-mannered Canuck travellers have built up a pool of goodwill in many destinations. No wonder those southerners stitch Canadian flags on their backpacks.

We Know Good Beer: Canada measures alcohol percentage by volume, not by weight, so when we get to Europe or the U.S. we can sample all their fine brews without ending up on the floor.  Watch out for the Aussies though… their legs are hollow.

The Loonie Is Flying: Our rising dollar has made our travels more affordable than last year. For $100, Canadians this year get $97 US, £64 or €78. Last July 1st, it was $86 US, £52 or €61. That’s a 12% gain on the US dollar, 23% on the British pound and 27% on the Euro. Woohoo, let’s get outta here!

Visa Free Travel with Canadian Passport: With Canadian passport in hand – and 70% of us have one — we can travel without visas to over 150 countries.

So Many Places To Go: Canada is well served by domestic and international airlines and new air services are being added all the time, recognizing the value of the Canadian market.

Weather Or Not: When you come from a place where it’s minus 30 in the winter and plus 30 in the summer, extreme weather isn’t that big an issue.

This week's travel news

By Bruce Parkinson, Takeoffeh.com - Monday, July 5, 2010 at 2:42 PM - 0 Comments

Sky-High Airfares: It’s The Canadian Way
Surprise, surprise: Canadians pay more to fly in Canada – a lot more — than Americans or Europeans. In a report titled ‘Canada’s Not-So-Friendly Skies,’ The Frontier Centre for Public Policy compared five Canadian flights, using the cheapest airfares available, against flights of similar distance in the U.S. and Europe. The results, while not unexpected, were still startling. For a total distance of about 3,300 domestic miles, fares in Europe tallied about $525, compared to $935 in the U.S. and close to $1,500 in Canada. Ouch. The Western Canadian think-tank that did the math credits Europe’s liberalized air policies and the resulting competition for the cheaper fares. It recommends a true “open-skies” policy, allowing foreign carriers to fly within the country. Currently, international carriers can fly in or out of Canada, but only Canadian airlines can service domestic routes. But airline consultant Rick Erickson says the situation is a little more complex than the study suggests. “I don’t see (foreign airlines) showing up and all of a sudden revolutionizing the Canadian airfare game,” he told the Calgary Herald. “They are going to find the costs here are higher, and that Air Canada and WestJet are very competitive competition.” Europe also boasts many lower-cost airports, often on former military bases. “It’s a completely different animal. I don’t see Canada being overly attractive to the international players,” Erickson said. In fact, following a year of discounted fares from WestJet and Air Canada, the Globe and Mail reports that increased demand and rising consumer confidence are leading to even higher domestic airfares.

Please Uncle Sam, May We Enter Your Airspace?
We knew it was coming, but the way it’s being done is upsetting opposition politicians – not to mention raising a few ethical questions. As Canwest News Service reported this week, the federal government has quietly presented a bill in the House of Commons that would give U.S. officials final say over who can board aircraft in Canada if they are to fly through United States airspace – even though they are not landing in the U.S.  Bill C-42 allows airlines to pass on passenger information to “a foreign state” for flights over that country. The legislation is needed so that Canadian airlines comply with U.S. Homeland Security’s Secure Flight program, which requires airlines to submit personal information about passengers 72 hours before a flight’s departure. If the bill passes, passengers leaving Canada on one of the many flights that travel over U.S. airspace will have their name, birth date and gender subject to screening by U.S. officials. If you have the same name as someone on a no-fly list, you may be questioned, delayed or even barred from the flight. If your name doesn’t show up, you get your boarding pass. Liberal transport critic Joe Volpe said Bill C-42 was introduced with no warning and no discussion with the opposition. Together, the opposition parties could vote down the legislation – a situation that could cause turmoil for air travel. “Canadian sovereignty has gone right out the window,” Liberal transport critic Joe Volpe told the Montreal Gazette in a recent interview. “You are going to be subject to American law.” NDP transport critic Dennis Bevington told Canwest that “We’re doing this without understanding what the threat assessment is. There’s no way that this is going to get an easy ride.”

Monopoly Is Over, But Porter’s Still The Boss Hog
The monopoly is over but it looks like Porter Airlines still owns Boardwalk. Since its launch in October, 2006, Porter has enjoyed exclusive rights to Toronto’s island airport. But that’s over. Airport overseer the Toronto Port Authority (TPA) has awarded landing slots to Air Canada and Continental. Of 202 available daily slots, Air Canada will get 30, Continental 16. Porter will get 44 new slots, giving it 156 in all – nearly 80% of the total. Each slot represents a one-way flight. Industry insiders told the Globe and Mail that the decision clears the way for Air Canada’s Jazz subsidiary to operate seven round-trips daily between Toronto and Montreal, and another eight round-trips between Toronto and Ottawa, or a total of 30 slots a day. Continental will likely only use half of its slot allocation for flights to Newark. It’s been four years since a terminal company controlled by Porter principal Robert Deluce voted Jazz off the island. Jazz had neglected its operations there – it was down to just five return flights a day when it got the boot — but it seemed to become much fonder of the island airport as it watched Porter build a popular, if not yet profitable service there. Jazz was seeking 74 slots in the new allocation and continues a court battle against Porter and the TPA for more access.

By: Bruce Parkinson
Bruce Parkinson is a travel industry journalist and regular contributor to Takeoffeh.com as well as sister company, OpenJaw.com

Photo Credits: ranplett, MMADIA, flyporter.com

This Week's Travel News

By Bruce Parkinson, Takeoffeh.com - Monday, June 28, 2010 at 2:53 PM - 0 Comments

Stop The Presses: There’s Good News For Canada’s Airlines
In an industry where the sky always seems to be falling, Canada’s airline sector is enjoying a period relatively free of turbulence.
As Reuters reported this week, shares in Air Canada and WestJet are both up by more than 20 per cent and analysts see more big gains on the horizon. It’s an impressive turnaround from last spring when Air Canada was on the brink of a second trip into bankruptcy and perennially-profitable WestJet was showing double-digit earnings declines. “Things are a lot better than a year ago. Demand has come back quite a bit in Canada and globally,” said Canaccord Genuity analyst David Tyerman. Even the highly lucrative first-and business-class travel is slowly making a comeback, which is critical for Air Canada, which makes most of its money from passengers in the front of the plane. At the same time, many consumers are still spending cautiously, which is good news for WestJet and its low-cost model. When analyst predictions are averaged, the expectation is that AC stock will reach $3.96 in the next 12 months, more than double the $1.92 its B shares closed at last week. The market expectations for WestJet are not as dramatic, largely because its stock was less battered during the recession as it was one of the few North American airlines to stay profitable throughout. On average, analysts expect WestJet’s stock to reach $16.59 in a year’s time, 29 per cent above its $12.85 close at the end of last week.

Full Steam Ahead Or Cruising For A Bruising?
The cruise industry is placing a very big bet that the global economy will recover. How big? Think billions, lots of billions. The shiny new Norwegian Epic is readying for its inaugural sailing this week. At a cost of $1.2-billion and a passenger capacity of 4,200, Epic is the most eagerly anticipated ship launch of the year, but certainly not the only one. In fact, more than a dozen large cruise ships will take to the water this year, after a similar number in 2009. Besides Epic, major launches this year include P&O’s Azura, Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, Celebrity’s Eclipse and Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas. In total, this year’s new ships will carry well over 25,000 passengers, who have to be replaced about once a week on average. Will the industry fill all these new berths? The cruise industry’s growth has been phenomenal over the past 20 years, average 7.4% growth each year. And as the market has matured in North America, cruise lines have been aggressive in seeking new markets, especially in the UK and Europe. But still, close to 80% of cruisers are from North America and not everyone is convinced that the North American economy – especially the U.S. portion – is heading back to health. As the Christian Science Monitor recently put it: “Ships are getting bigger and Americans are getting poorer.” The publication pointed to a forecast of 1.6-million personal bankruptcies in the U.S. this year, coupled with an unemployment rate near 10%. Those figures certainly encourage pause for thought, but so far the cruise business seems to have weathered the storm remarkably well – Carnival Cruise Corp. for one just posted a $250-million profit for the second quarter. And the industry continues to generate massive amounts of breathless press. Epic is all over the news this week and on Allure of the Seas, sister to world’s largest cruise ship Oasis of the Seas, made headlines recently when it announced that popular cartoon characters from DreamWorks will form a major part of onboard family entertainment is readying for its inaugural sailing this week Royal Caribbean obviously hopes the allure of cute cartoon Shrek and Donkey will keep the cruisers coming.

Big In Dubai: That’s The Way They Roll
In Dubai, it seems that small is just not an option. Take the Dubai World Central Al-Maktoum International airport: still under construction, the plan is to build the largest airport in the world with five runways, four terminal buildings and an annual capacity for 160 million passengers and 12 million tonnes of cargo. The airport will be ten times the size of the current Dubai International Airport, which ranked as the 15^th busiest in the world in 2009, processing over 40 million passengers. Al-Maktoum saw its first test cargo flight land successfully this week, heralding the beginning of partial operations within a week or so. The airport is part of a $33-billion dollar Dubai World Central DWC project that will take the Emirate’s position as a global transport hub to a new level. The master plan includes six inter-related developments — the world’s largest airport, Dubai Logistics City, DWC Aviation City, DWC Residential City, DWC Commercial City and DWC Golf City. The names aren’t exactly compelling, but the scale of the projects is vast. As a point of comparison, the world’s busiest airport, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, served close to 90 million passengers in 2009, while Canada’s largest airport, Toronto’s Pearson International, handled just over 30 million passengers in 2009.

By: Bruce Parkinson
Bruce Parkinson is a travel industry journalist and regular contributor to Takeoffeh.com as well as sister company, OpenJaw.com

Photo Credits: epic.ncl.com, en.wikipedia.org

Virgin's Second Coming: Will This One Last?

By Takeoffeh.com - Monday, June 28, 2010 at 2:49 PM - 0 Comments

U.S. low-cost carrier Virgin America launched its first international route this week from LA to Toronto, but it’s not the first Virgin to land in Canada.

Sister airline Virgin Atlantic launched service to London from Toronto in June 2001. At the inaugural event, a confident Virgin founder Richard Branson told TakeOffeh’s Nina Slawek: “Toronto is not an easy market but we really do expect in 50 years to still be around.”

A couple of months later the September 11 attacks sent the aviation industry into a spiral. A few months after that, Virgin Atlantic pulled out. While the terrorist attacks certainly contributed to Virgin Atlantic’s departure, the Toronto-London route is fiercely competitive, led by Air Canada and British Airways, with substantial seasonal charter traffic to boot.

On the Los Angeles and San Francisco routes, Virgin America is launching with daily service to Toronto. Air Canada will be the main competition, and as expected, new competition has brought its fangs out. AC has boosted its seat capacity in the Toronto-California market by more than 50% in advance of Virgin America’s arrival and is undercutting Virgin America’s fares with rates as low as $187 one-way, before taxes, between Toronto and San Francisco for weekdays in mid-July.

“Virgin America is a low-cost carrier unlike Virgin Atlantic so I am sure they will have a different strategy,” says airline industry expert Chris Rivers. “It will be tough against AC though, because they will match their prices and they have the formidable Aeroplan.”

As the Globe and Mail reports, Virgin America chairman Donald Carty (who is also chairman of Toronto-based Porter Airlines) says price isn’t the only factor in route success. “Many start-ups have come to the market with the promise to the customer of low prices. That’s great, but the customer wants and expects more. We will be delivering a travel experience, too,” he said.

The Virgin America ‘experience’ earned the carrier a ‘Best Domestic Airline’ rating from Travel + Leisure magazine in both 2008 and 2009. Features include mood lighting, inflight Wi-Fi, a self-serve mini bar and snack trolley and a dynamic entertainment system known as ‘Red.’

It’s a sexy product for sure, but Carty knows Virgin America is in for a fight. “Air Canada isn’t a naive carrier. They will compete and won’t give up turf easily. If we see a strong economic recovery, there is probably room for success on routes for both entities.”

It should also be noted that Air Canada was voted “Best Airline in North America” by readers of Global Travel magazine in its annual survey of business travellers.

Virgin America is hoping for the best, and already looking at Vancouver as a second Canadian destination. Carty sees the opportunity to tap into a large community of Canadians working in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, and the high-tech biz in San Francisco.

Once the G8 crowds clear out of town, Branson will be back for an official inauguration on June 29^th. In true Virgin style it will be a party, with red-hot Canadian hip hop artist Drake among the attendees.

By: Bruce Parkinson
Bruce Parkinson is a travel industry journalist and regular contributor to Takeoffeh.com as well as sister company, OpenJaw.com

Photo Credits: en.wikipedia.org

This week's travel news

By Bruce Parkinson, Takeoffeh.com - Friday, June 18, 2010 at 1:01 PM - 2 Comments

The Airline Pricing Obstacle Course
Airline pricing continues to make headlines for befuddling passengers. In the U.S., new ‘unbundled’ fees seem to appear every day. The latest is American Airlines charging from $9 to $19 for the privilege of boarding early – just after the premium passengers. Why would people pay for that dubious benefit? Mostly because high fees for checked luggage have spurred many passengers to bring only carry-on, creating a free-for-all battle for overhead bin space. In the UK and Europe, no-frills airlines continue to offer what look like jaw-dropping low fares, which can more than double when ‘optional’ fees are added. Carriers like Ryanair, easyJet and Flybe charge up to £30 to put a standard 20kg bag in the hold. Passengers also face fees for paying by credit card, printing boarding passes and selecting seats. Next month Ryanair will hike luggage costs by £10 if passengers don’t check in online. In today’s crazy airline landscape British tabloid News of the World says a ticket on British Airways can end up costing less than one on a no-frills carrier, because it doesn’t charge booking fees or to check in luggage. Here in Canada we can count ourselves lucky on some counts. Neither Air Canada nor WestJet have taken unbundling to the levels of airlines south of the border, never mind Europe. But even here, the final price of a flight can double from the advertised amount due to extra fees, fuel surcharges and government taxes. As reported this week, legislation was passed by Parliament three years ago that would force airlines to advertise the full cost of a ticket. But a last-minute amendment won by the airline lobby delayed the advertising provision until the government and industry held consultations. As another legislative session comes to a close, it appears that Transport Minister John Baird has for a second time reneged on a commitment to move the process forward. It looks like we’ll continue to need calculators to figure out the price of a flight for some time to come.

Boeing & Airbus Hear Footsteps As Competition Looms
While their own rivalry has certainly been fierce, Boeing and Airbus have pretty much enjoyed a duopoly in the large passenger aircraft market for many years. But that’s going to change as some of the fast-emerging BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – bring their own flying machines to market. Canada is striving for a piece of the pie too, with Bombardier set to take on the big guys in the 100-149 seat market with its CSeries, set to enter service in 2013. Other competitors include China’s Comac, Brazil’s Embraer and Russian companies Sukhoi and United Aircraft Company. Almost all of the new competition will be in the narrow-body market, because of the prohibitive cost of entry for wide-body construction. The price of developing new jets like Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner or Airbus’s new A350 is estimated at more than $12 billion, making it unlikely that challengers will emerge until 2030 at the earliest. In the short-haul market, leaders Bombardier and Embraer will also see some new competition from Japan’s Mitsubishi. By 2014 the company hopes to be airborne with the first passenger aircraft to be built by a Japanese company since the mid-70s. It’s a beauty, too, with sleek lines, a dipped nose, a more spacious cabin than its competitors and perhaps most importantly, a highly fuel-efficient engine.

Water & Lights Show Is Next Step In Making Disneyland Grand
Five years in the making, a new evening water and lights show at Disney’s California Adventure in Disneyland has kicked off a $1.4 billion expansion. The 25-minute ‘World of Color’ show takes place in the Paradise Bay lagoon and features 1,200 fountains and water screens on which images of iconic Disney characters are projected. Lasers, fire, lights and music are other components of a show described by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Tom Staggs as “exhilarating”. The growth continues with a Little Mermaid attraction opening next year and a 12-acre Cars Land that will be unveiled in 2012. The expansion marks the continuation of plans to transform the original Disneyland theme park into a multi-day resort destination. The new attractions aim to piggyback on the popularity of Disney and Disney/Pixar characters, with the goal, Disney says, of “adding product that tells a story.”

Buying A New Knee In Bangkok
Medical tourism is fast becoming a worldwide, multi-billion dollar industry. In the U.S. alone it’s currently a $20-billion market but experts predict that to multiply to $100-billion by 2012. While Americans travel to overseas hospitals in order to pay as little as 10% of what they would pay at home, Canadians are going for different reasons – mostly to avoid long wait-times for things like hip or knee replacements or cardiac surgery. In the past, the bulk of medical travel has been for cosmetic procedures, but that is quickly changing as facilities improve around the world. As reported in trade rag OpenJaw.com, travel agency marketing organization Travelsavers has been researching the market for some time and has now made the leap with the formation of Well-Being Travel. Travelsavers member agencies in Canada and the U.S. won’t sell the medical services– they’ve teamed up with a company called Companion Global Healthcare for that – but they will arrange air and hotel stays based around state-of-the-art hospitals in places like India, Thailand and Turkey. Executive vice president of Well-Being Travel Anne Marie Moebes is definitely a convert. She required dental work priced at $18,000 in the U.S. and got it for $4,000 including airfare in Central America. She says “you could eat off the floor” in its partner hospitals which included Bumrungrad International in Bangkok and Anadolu Medical Center in Istanbul.

By: Bruce Parkinson
Bruce Parkinson is a travel industry journalist and regular contributor to Takeoffeh.com as well as sister company, OpenJaw.com

Photo Credits: embraer.com, disneyland.disney.go.com, wikimedia.org

Zoo & Aquarium Controversy

By Takeoffeh.com - Friday, June 18, 2010 at 10:34 AM - 3 Comments

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the world’s largest animal rights organization, does not believe animals should be used for entertainment or kept in zoos, theme parks or aquariums. Responding to a recent piece on TakeOffeh.com, PETA’s Captive Exotic Animal Specialist, Lisa Wathne, had this to say:

Lisa Wathne: We at PETA were disappointed to hear that you view the decline of ticket sales at SeaWorld following the death of trainer Dawn Brancheau, who was attacked by one of the theme park’s captive orcas, as “unfortunate” (“The Upside of Bad Situations,” 10 May). After being pulled into a tank by an orca, Brancheau’s scalp was torn from her head, her arm was ripped from her body, and her spine, ribs, and facial bones were broken. Families and children watched as an orca slammed a woman, who had just been smiling at them, to death. It is hardly good news that by reducing the price of admission, SeaWorld is, in essence, trying to bribe people into ignoring their better judgment and supporting what is basically an attractively decorated prison for marine mammals.

We all know how much people of all ages love the natural world and the creatures that inhabit it, and how much joy children get out of interacting with animals. We asked Lisa Wathne for some alternatives.

TakeOffeh: How can marine life be enjoyed without captive animals being involved?

Lisa Wathne: There are many ways to learn about, appreciate, and enjoy sea life without supporting marine theme parks and aquariums. People can explore the wonderful world of marine animals through books, magazines, videos, sophisticated computer programs, and displays such as “Conny,” the life-size sperm whale replica at The Children’s Museum in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Several displays, including Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Adventure Tour, offer an interactive experience that uses realistic animatronic animals to convey the excitement and adventure of nature. Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Adventure Tour travels across the U.S. for appearances at fairs, festivals, and other venues.

Last year, IMAX theaters opened Under the Sea 3D, a film that gives viewers face-to-face encounters with some of the most mysterious creatures of the sea. It offers a uniquely inspirational and entertaining way to explore the beauty and natural wonder of the oceans and discover how they are affected by global climate change. In IMAX theatres, the images “leap” off the screen and appear to float around the room, virtually putting the audience in the movie.

<!––>Virtual Dolphin Therapy at La Quinta Healing Arts in California recreates an underwater sanctuary with a multimedia mix of dolphin vocalizations, a screen showing frolicking dolphins, and a vibrating sound-wave table.

TakeOffeh: For some people books, films and animatronic machines will never replace the real thing. How about some ideas that include viewing real, live marine life?

Lisa Wathne: John Pennekamp National Park in the Florida Keys is fabulous. Established in 1963, John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park was the first undersea park created in the U.S. The park and the adjacent Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary encompass 178 nautical square miles of coral reefs, sea-grass beds, and mangrove swamps. These areas were established to protect and preserve the only living coral reef in the continental U.S. You can swim there, but you can also take advantage of reasonably priced snorkelling tours that allow you to go right in with the animals—in their home and on their terms.

Key West’s new Eco-Discovery Center offers interactive displays and walk-through labs, but the animals there swim freely. And it’s free!

North America’s only natural freshwater aquarium is located in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Opened in 1990, the Fluvarium provides nine panoramic glimpses into a real diverted brook in which brown trout swim freely in and out of the viewing areas, which include deep and shallow ponds and a fast-flowing “riffle” where the fish spawn in the fall.

Photo Credits: imax.com, virtualdolphintherapy.com, pennekamppark.com

Porter Plans To Operate Full Flight Sched During G20

By Takeoffeh.com - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 11:26 AM - 2 Comments

Porter Airlines is confirming that it will operate a full flight schedule during the G20 Summit meetings scheduled for June 26th and 27th, in Toronto.  At the same time, it is possible that some delays may be experienced due to special security measures being implemented downtown.

Peak summit related activities will occur between Friday, June 25th and Sunday, June 27th as well as the time leading up to the summit from Monday June 21st to Thursday June 24th, may affect aspects of travel for passengers arriving to or departing from Toronto.

Road closures will prevent Porter’s shuttle bus from operating on certain days. Porter has decidedto suspend their complimentary shuttle service as part of security and safety plans starting Monday, June 21st, through Sunday, June 27th. Regular shuttle service resumes Monday, June 28.

Public transit may be the best option. Union Station and public transit are to continue operating. A streetcar stop is located one short block from the airport at Bathurst St. and Queen’s Quay.

On the ground, passengers should allow more time than usual for getting to and departing from Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport.  Some delays and detours are to be expected when navigating the city. Movement will be highly restricted within designated downtown areas that are typically accessible, particularly beginning Friday, June 25th.

The airport ferry service will operate on its normal schedule.

“Our main objective is to give people as much information as possible about Porter’s plan for operating during the G20, so that they can make informed travel decisions,” said Robert Deluce, President and CEO of Porter Airlines.  “Everyone recognizes this is an extraordinary event and new information may cause some plans to be adjusted.  We’ll do our best to make sure our passengers have the best information as soon as possible.

Passengers can keep track of their flight status at www.flyporter.com. And, if travel plans are altered due to the summit, a credit can be issued or itinerary changes made for no cost. This can be arranged by contacting the Call Centre, (888) 619-8622, which is open Monday to Friday, 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. ET, and Saturday to Sunday, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET.

Passengers are also encouraged to keep up to date through media reports and websites, such as G20 Summit – http://g20.gc.ca/home/.

This week's travel news

By Bruce Parkinson, Takeoffeh.com - Friday, June 11, 2010 at 2:11 PM - 4 Comments

Why Robert Milton Made $14.7 Million In 2009
Robert Milton’s legacy at Air Canada may be hotly debated, but there’s no question Milton’s long association with the airline has left a lasting legacy in his bank account. While long since departed to England, Milton is still president and CEO of ACE Aviation, AC’s parent company and 35% shareholder in the airline. As Canadian Press reported this week, thanks to a ‘rationalized’ compensation structure, Milton received close to $15-million from ACE in 2009 – not bad compensation for a part-time job. In reality, Milton’s big payday has more to do with the ‘value-enhancing transactions’ that have enriched shareholders in the past five years, namely spinning off Aeroplan and Jazz Air. In actual compensation for 2009 Milton received a base salary of just over $500,000 and consulting fees of $157,500. Milton also received severance compensation of $7.62 million and a “last payment” of $5 million in ‘incentive awards.’ This year’s $14.7-million in compensation should be the last of the big windfalls for Milton – he made $39-million in 2006 and 2007, again mostly in cash bonuses for engineering the asset sales that warmed the hearts of investors and enraged unions. Going forward, Milton’s paycheque will be held to $270,000 per year – unless he works more than 40 days, at which point he’ll get a per diem of $8,000 per day.

Versailles No More: Pearson Named World’s Most Improved Airport
Once derided as the most expensive place in the world for airlines to land, Toronto’s Pearson International has been honoured by the International Air Transport Association as the world’s ‘most improved’ airport. Over the past three years, Pearson has decreased various charges by 13 to 15 percent. The fee cuts come in the wake of an IATA campaign to get the Greater Toronto Airport Association to lower costs. As IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani puts it: “They built a monument with no notion of how to fund it. We called it Versailles. We had to get rid of a [federal] minister and the [GTAA] CEO. Then we started to work closely together.” As Doug McArthur reported at TakeOffeh.com this week, whether or not passengers are benefitting from lower costs is an open question. Asked if the savings are being passed on to passengers, Bisignani replied cryptically that “the money doesn’t stay in the airlines’ pocket.” Asked the same question, Marilynne Day-Linton, chair of the GTAA board, said she didn’t know. Air Canada president and CEO Calin Rovinescu came closest to giving a clear answer, saying cost reductions are reflected in Air Canada’s fares, which are lower “on an absolute basis” than they were a decade ago. IATA says the big benefit of the reduced costs is that fewer airlines will pull out of Toronto and more new airlines will start flying there.

More Profit, More Planes for Emirates
A day after announcing that it is on track to earn more than $1 billion in profits this year, Dubai based airline Emirates placed an $11.5 billion order for 32 Airbus A380s – the world’s largest passenger aircraft. Emirates now has 90 of the big birds on order, over 40% of the entire A380 order book for Airbus. A380s aren’t the only planes in Emirates’ future - in total the airline has contracted for 150 wide-body aircraft worth more than $40 billion, including 70 A350s and 18 Boeing 777-300s. It’s all part of of Emirates’ ambitious strategy to act as a global hub, joining previously unconnected city-pairs around the world through just one stop in Dubai. Emirates is currently flying 10 A380s, with Toronto one of the stops on its route map. The airline was founded just 25 years ago and now ranks among the top 10 in the world in terms of revenue and international passengers. Profitability and a reputation for first rate onboard service has earned Emirates 8^th place in this year’s Skytrax ranking of the world’s best airlines. To put its $1 billion profit projection in perspective, the world’s airlines are expected to earn a total of $2.8 billion this year.

By: Bruce Parkinson
Bruce Parkinson is a travel industry journalist and regular contributor to Takeoffeh.com as well as sister company, OpenJaw.com

Photo Credits: aceaviation.com, gtaa.com, emirates.com

Luggage Logic and the Giant Floating Chandelier

By Takeoffeh.com - Friday, June 11, 2010 at 1:57 PM - 1 Comment

With the summer travel season almost upon us, airports will be filled with frazzled folks flitting far, far away. There’s nothing like a lost bag to put a cramp in your visit to the in-laws, so here are a few tips to help you avoid luggage letdown.

Do You Need It?
This is a two-part question. Part One: Most people pack way too much. Try to remember what you took last time and didn’t use, and eliminate it this time. Part Two: If you can’t afford to lose it, don’t bring it. Leave Grandma’s pearls at home.

Don’t Check It:
Let’s be honest. All those people who tell you they pack 10 days worth of stuff in a carry-on are rumpled, dirty and far too ascetic for our taste. They also clearly don’t have kids. That being said: take anything valuable as carry-on and a throw in a change of clothes too, along with medications, electronics and travel documents. With checked luggage couples and families should definitely cross-pack, so if a bag goes missing, they’ve all got something to wear.

Bag It & Tag It:
You want your luggage to be distinctive, so make sure it is well identified with ID tags and a sticker or ribbon so you can pick it out on the carousel. Don’t rely on old baggage tags as ID, or your bag could end up back at your previous destination.

Eyes on the Prize:
Don’t dawdle while heading to the baggage claim. Sometimes bags come remarkably quickly, and you don’t want someone else walking off with your stuff. Many people also prefer to keep their bags in sight as much as possible when checking in to a hotel or boarding a cruise ship. It’s often easier and more reassuring to carry your own luggage or accompany it to your room or cabin.

Spotlight on Norwegian Epic
What’s a new cruise ship without a superlative or two? Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Epic will set sail this month, and final fittings included installing the largest LED chandelier at sea. The massive piece is the focal point of the ship’s atrium and the Epic Casino — also the largest at sea.  But they don’t make chandeliers like they used to – this one features 10,000 LED diodes allowing it to project all colours of the spectrum through 40,000 glass crystals. The monster light is the product of Vienna’s Kalmar, a leading glass crystal maker and specialist in chandeliers that make statements in hotels and palaces around the world. The 21-foot tall, 11-foot diameter chandelier weighs two metric tonnes and took a team of people three weeks to install.

Photo Credits: jocic, epic.ncl.com

Summer Getaways: Ontario

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Friday, June 11, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 14 Comments

Niagara Falls
Though it’s still the “Honeymoon Capital of the World,” and tacky tours and all-you-can-eat buffets are alive and well, a new attitude is changing this tourist mecca. Shops that once sold kitsch in and around the historic Queen Street Arts and Entertainment District are sharing space with elegant galleries, cafés, bistros and a renovated Seneca Theatre. The area is a recreational hub. Cyclists and joggers enjoy more than 50 km of paved pathways on the Niagara River Recreational Trail. And with the recent completion of several new championship courses, Niagara has joined the ranks of one of Canada’s premier golf destinations.

Lake Erie North Shore and Pelee Island
Tour the region’s acclaimed wineries and sample prize-winning vintages. Wander the sprawling greenhouses of Colisanti’s Tropical Gardens in Ruthven, home to flowering cacti and tropical plants, before making your way to Point Pelee National Park and Pelee Island, where you can dig your toes into the sandy beaches or explore the bird-filled marshes and Carolinian forests.

Toronto
There’s plenty in T.O. for those passing through—and for locals who don’t have friends with cottages. Kicking things off is the North by Northeast Music and Film Festival (June 16-20), a showcase of 650 bands and 40 music-related films. Pride Week (June 25-July 4) attracts more than a million people and features one of the more eclectic parades you’ll ever see. The Toronto Fringe Festival (June 30-July 11) is the city’s premier grassroots theatre event. Just for Laughs (July 6-11) will leave you in stiches, while the Toronto Arts Exhibition (July 9-11), featuring 500 artists, will make you think. There’s Caribana (July 13-Aug.1), a cultural explosion of everything Caribbean. And plenty for sports lovers: the stars and cars of the IndyCar Series at the Honda Indy Toronto (July 16-18) and the world’s best male tennis players at the Rogers Cup (Aug. 7-15) at York University. Cap things off at the Canadian National Exhibition (Aug. 20-Sept. 6).

Quinte Country and Prince Edward County
Sandbanks Provincial Park, near Picton, is home to golden beaches and the world’s largest system of freshwater sand dunes. Sample culinary creations and tasty local wines on Prince Edward County’s Taste Trail. And the scenic Loyalist Parkway, from Kingston to Trenton, has 40 archaeological sites, plus 125 notable heritage buildings to explore.

To see what Russell Peters picks as his favourite spots, go to Where famous Canucks go to play

For more information on events and travel in Ontario, see www.ontariotravel.net

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Where famous Canucks go to play
Ontario – Sandy beaches, big city sights
Saskatchewan – Look, Up in the sky
New Brunswick – Jazz riffs and tidal raves
Alberta – where to find your inner cowboy
Manitoba – Birdies, belugas and broadway
Newfoundland and Labrador – Enjoy the rocky roads
Prince Edward Island – Swings, sails and celebs
British Columbia – plenty of sights and sounds
Quebec – When the cirque comes to town
The North – An amazing race
Nova Scotia – Taste, the adventure

No passport required, great travel destinations in Canada

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Friday, June 11, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 22 Comments

Our annual guide to summer travel highlights across the country.

	Quebec When the cirque comes to town		Manitoba Birdies, belugas and broadway
	Ontario Sandy beaches, big city sights		Alberta Where to find your inner cowboy
	Saskatchewan Look, Up in the sky		British Columbia Plenty of sights and sounds
	Newfoundland and Labrador Enjoy the rocky roads		Nova Scotia Taste, the adventure
	New Brunswick Jazz riffs and tidal raves		Prince Edward Island Swings, sails and celebs
	The North An amazing race
Where famous Canucks go to play - Travel-savvy celebs pick their favourite holiday posts